Of course, that was not what happened, because as soon as Sloane heard me fumbling with the door, it flew open.
“Hello lovebirds!” She was clearly wired again from being up all night and I had thought maybe she’d have crashed, but no such luck.
“Hi, Sloane,” I said, trying to give her The Signal with my eyes.
“What’s wrong with your eyes?” she said, completely missing The Signal. So much for that.
“Okay, well Lucah has to go home, so I’m just going to get him his stuff and then he’s going to go. I’ll be right back.” I poked Sloane as I passed her.
“Ow!”
“Be nice!” I said as I hurried to my bedroom for his stuff.
“So, you’re banging my best friend, huh?” Ugh! Did she not hear what I just said?
“Sloane!” I yelled.
“What? It’s a legitimate question. And we’re all adults here. Oh, and how did you like the steak? I wasn’t sure if it was going to turn out because the asparagus hasn’t been very good this year, but it turned out okay, right?”
I hung back for just a second, listening.
“It was wonderful, thank you so much for doing that. You’re a great friend to Rory, and any friend of hers is a friend of mine.”
“Uh huh,” she said and I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was still evaluating him. It was time to dash in and rescue Lucah.
“Here you go,” I said, coming out and shoving his bag at him. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the place?”
“See you tomorrow, Sunshine.” He didn’t kiss me good-bye, because we’d agreed no kisses good-bye after our nights now. He walked down the hall and waved before taking his hat out of the bag and putting it on his head.
I smiled and closed the door.
“Oh my God, you have got the fever, Rory.” Sloane fanned herself.
“I do not.”
“You are so totally and completely in love with him.”
“I am not,” I said, walking into the living room and avoiding eye contact with her. She just followed me, grabbed my shoulders and sat me down on the couch facing her.
“You love him, Rory.” This was a statement, not a question.
“No. Not yet. But . . .”
“Yeah, you do. Admit it. You wanna marry him and make little ginger babies and continue the ginger species. They’re dying out you know, which means you’re probably going to have to have at least ten. Come on. You can admit it to me. I won’t tell anyone, I swear. Scout’s honor.” Sloane hadn’t been a scout either, so she just gave me a peace sign with her fingers.
“Sloane,” I said. “Just don’t push, okay? I’ve got a lot to figure out right now and I really don’t want to talk about it.” She searched my face, and she knew me well enough to know when I shouldn’t be pushed. This was another quality that made her such good friend material.
“Okay, Rory. You got it. But I still want details about what you did.” So I talked about the night and the sticky notes and going to the museum and before I could stop myself I told her about the phone call and the brother.
“A brother? A bad boy brother? I wonder if he’s got red hair as well . . .” She stared off into space as if she was trying to conjure the brother with her mind.
“Sloane.” I snapped my fingers in front of her face.
“What? I was just thinking. Anyway, so it was good? You’re happy? You seem happy. I catch you smiling all the time. You didn’t smile that much with King Douchebag. And at least this guy hasn’t made you cry.”
Yet.
I rolled my eyes and went to take a shower before I headed over to my parents’.
21
“You have to stop doing that in the office, Mr. Blaine,” I said as his arms came around me as I stood at the counter of the break room. I stepped away from him and moved toward the Keurig, popping in one of the cups.
“Okay, okay. I’ll give you five feet.” He slid down the counter so there was space between us.
“Are you drinking coffee tonight?”
“Yes. At the usual time.”
“Sounds good.” He was undressing me with his eyes, which was against the rules, but I let him get away with it anyway.
“You’re being bad, Mr. Blaine,” I said with my voice low. Mr. Craig walked in, interrupting the sexytimes. Cock blocker. What was the girl equivalent of that? There should be one.
“Hello, Rory. How are you?” All of the older men in the company had watched me grow up here, so they all got to call me by my first name. I’d tried to put a stop to it a while ago, but it had been useless. These guys didn’t change their habits.
“I’m fabulous, how are you?” I smiled as the coffee brewed into the cups and Lucah started washing his hands in the sink so he would have some reason for being in the break room. He dried them quickly and without saying a word to Mr. Craig, he left, not looking at me. Well, that was suspicious.
“How’s your new assistant working out?” Mr. Craig said.
I made some generic compliments about Lucah and then told him that my dad was waiting for his coffee, so I had a reason to escape when he started talking about his new car and what a crime it was that they had redone his favorite golf course.
I actually decided to visit Dad, since it had been a while since we had talked about work-related items. I’d also been watching the expense reports, and I had noticed another spike in ordering. Subtle, but it was still there. Dad was busy and didn’t have a chance to talk, so I just wrote him a note that it could wait. The spikes could be completely normal. I was probably just being paranoid.
I went back to my desk and found a dirty text from Lucah. He’d been sending me a lot of those lately. I typed an equally dirty response and sent it to him. I drew the line at naked pictures, but imagined the look on his face if I closed my office door and took one and sent it to him. A seductive thought, but I knew it would come back to bite me in the ass.
This was going to be a long week.
Something was up with Lucah the next morning when I got out of the shower. He made me breakfast, but he almost seemed grumpy, and I tried to ask him what was wrong, but he didn’t say anything.
We hadn’t discussed what he’d told me about wanting to be with me all the time since Sunday. I was going to put it off as long as possible. I’d also been subtly searching out to see if we had any positions in other departments that I could put him up for. I had no doubt that it would be easy to get him in somewhere else with my recommendation and the support of the board. I still hadn’t figured out what that was about.